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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467015">Risk Management</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrsenian/pseuds/tyrsenian'>tyrsenian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Whiskey Cavalier (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, but the focus is on Will and Frankie, the team shows up in the second half</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:40:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467015</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrsenian/pseuds/tyrsenian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When a mission goes wrong, Will is forced to make an impossible decision and face the fallout that comes with it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Chase/Frankie Trowbridge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A year ago I answered a tumblr prompt and thesearchforbluejello said, "I bet this could be angstier," and the idea for this fic was born. A huge thanks to her for her excellent beta-ing and for convincing me not to abandon this fic on about six different occasions.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The door closes behind the last of the guards and Frankie groans. “This was a terrible plan.”</p>
<p>“We’re both still alive, so I’d count that as a plus,” Will says mildly.</p>
<p>She frowns. “I probably could’ve taken out those armed guards. There were only like ten.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, ‘probably’ being the operative word there.” </p>
<p>She turns her head to glare at him and he shrugs. </p>
<p>“We’re also both unarmed and… zip-tied?”</p>
<p>She can’t actually see what’s keeping her hands restrained behind her back, but there are zip ties around her ankles and she can feel something hard and narrow digging into her wrists. Will is sitting in a chair next to her with his limbs similarly tied.</p>
<p>“See?” he says. “Could be worse. We could be handcuffed.”  </p>
<p>Frankie grunts in reply. She tries to raise her arms but can’t quite get them over the back of the chair. “They took my keys and wallet and I can’t reach the knife in my boot. Did they leave you with anything sharp?”</p>
<p>“Wait, you kept the knife?” Will asks reproachfully. “Frankie, you said you were gonna get rid of all your weapons in case they searched you.”</p>
<p>She grins but knows the expression is a little sheepish. “Sarah the journalist is ex-military, she wouldn’t walk into a situation like this entirely defenseless.”</p>
<p>Will raises his eyebrows. “Okay, you are officially no longer allowed to comment on my elaborate backstories. But no, they were very thorough.”</p>
<p>“Great,” she says drily.</p>
<p>She scans the room, searching for anything that could be used to saw through their restraints. </p>
<p>“There’s a nail sticking out of the wall behind you. Like, three inches up and to the left.”</p>
<p>Will twists, reaching his arms upwards until the zip tie snags. “I’m gonna dislocate a shoulder before I cut through this thing.”</p>
<p>“And yet you make fun of me for going to yoga with Susan.”</p>
<p>“I did not make fun of you! I was just… surprised.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” she says. She’s not planning to let the matter drop but Will tenses suddenly and turns his head toward the door.</p>
<p>“Did you hear that?” he asks. “I think someone’s coming.” </p>
<p>She can hear the faint sound of footsteps coming from somewhere outside the room. They continue to get louder until the door swings open and two armed guards walk in.</p>
<p>“We know one of you is lying,” the first man announces.</p>
<p>“What?” Will laughs as though he’s genuinely confused by the statement. “That’s ridiculous. We already told you, we’re investigative reporters. What could we possibly be lying about?”</p>
<p>“We found a bag outside containing two guns and a set of knives. Care to explain that?” </p>
<p>Shit. They’d ditched the backpacks after the first group of security guards had called for backup, on the theory that they were more likely to make it inside the compound alive if they appeared nonthreatening. At least the guards only found one of the bags.</p>
<p>“That’s not ours,” Frankie insists, her eyes wide. “Someone else must have left them there.”</p>
<p>“I don’t even know how to use a gun,” Will adds. </p>
<p>The guard frowns, drawing his pistol from its holster. “I’ll shoot both of you right now if you’re just gonna keep lying to me.” </p>
<p>Will opens his mouth to protest but Frankie cuts him off. “Wait,” she says. “It’s me. I’m not really a journalist.”</p>
<p>She watches as Will’s expression changes from surprise to fear to something close to anger. The strength of his acting skills comes from his ability to repurpose genuine emotion: he hadn’t expected her to break cover and he’s probably pissed as hell, but she knows him well enough to be sure that the fear of her is a complete fabrication.</p>
<p>“Sarah? You said that bag was for camera equipment.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I lied.” She keeps her tone light. As far as the guards are concerned, she’s a ruthless spy using this unfortunate journalist to help her reach her goal.</p>
<p>“Alright then,” the guard says to the man next to him. “Kill the spare.”</p>
<p>“You hurt him and you won’t get a word out of me,” Frankie growls.</p>
<p>“Oh, interesting,” the guard says with a hint of amusement. “She cares about him.”</p>
<p>Damnit. She shouldn’t have said it like that. Really, she hadn’t meant to, and that’s a problem she’ll deal with later. She knows there’s a very real chance they would have killed Will if she hadn’t intervened, but her outburst may have just given them the idea to use his safety as leverage. </p>
<p>“Leave him out of this, okay? He just wanted a good story.” She tries her best to sound bored with the conversation.</p>
<p>The guard raises his eyebrows. “You’re not exactly in a position to be making demands.”</p>
<p>“You’re not just a little curious about why I’m here?” Frankie asks. </p>
<p>“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find that out,” the guard says to Frankie. “You’re coming with me.” He bends down to cut the zip tie around her ankles. “Try anything and I kill your friend.”</p>
<p>Frankie glares at him but lets him pull her up from the chair. She doesn’t look back at Will as she’s led from the room.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Will waits until the door slams shut and he’s certain he’s alone before he gets to work on freeing himself from his restraints. His shoulders are burning from holding his arms at such an unnatural position and the zip ties cut into his skin each time they catch on the nail. He tries to let the pain distract him from thinking about Frankie. A part of him hates that she’s trying to protect him and yet he’d do the same for her without even thinking.</p>
<p>He knows the risk she took was calculated, that she’s had at least as much training as him for situations like this, but that doesn’t ease the worry that creeps into his stomach as silence settles in the room. She might be a formidable opponent in a fight, but right now she’s tied up and outnumbered and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to help her.</p>
<p>What he can do right now is tell himself that she’ll come back and then they’ll find a way out of this and complete the mission. And that scenario is a whole lot more likely if he can get these damn zip ties off.</p>
<p>He continues to work at it, reaching upwards until the zip tie catches on the nail before pulling his arms down with as much force as he can manage. It’s an awkward angle that doesn’t give him much leverage but he thinks he’s slowly starting to wear down the plastic. He’s not sure how much time passes before he hears footsteps again. He barely has time to drop his arms back to their original position before the door swings open again and two new guards dump Frankie back in her chair.</p>
<p>“Are you alright?” he asks, keeping his voice stiff and wary for the benefit of the guards but letting just a hint of concern shine through. He can see a red mark along her cheekbone that’s starting to bruise but she seems to be otherwise uninjured.</p>
<p>“I’m fine.” Her voice is a combination of firm but condescending that she hasn’t used on him in months, clearly ending the conversation between the journalist and the spy.</p>
<p>He waits until the guards leave the room before he explodes. “Frankie, what the hell?” </p>
<p>“I’m trying to give you enough time to break through the zip tie,” she hisses. “And it’d be great if you could hurry up a little, ‘cause I’d rather not do that again.”</p>
<p>“I thought you said—”</p>
<p>“Well it wasn’t exactly a trip to the spa, but I’m okay. Really,” she adds because he makes no effort to hide his sceptical expression.</p>
<p>“I’ve almost got it,” he says. “How long do you think we have till they come back?”</p>
<p>“They didn’t happen to announce their entire plan so I don’t really know.”</p>
<p>“Okay, fair.”</p>
<p>They sit in silence as Will concentrates on cutting through his restraints and he tells himself that Frankie’s just letting him work in peace. There’s definitely no need to worry about the fact that she’s rarely this still or this quiet for so long. Frankie catches Will watching her from the corner of his eye and turns to make a face at him, sitting up just a little straighter in her chair.</p>
<p>“What,” she snaps.</p>
<p>Will just shakes his head. He pulls at the zip tie again and feels the plastic finally give way. “There we go.”</p>
<p>He rotates his arms before bringing them in front of him to inspect his wrists. They’re raw and bloody from his repeated attempts to break through the plastic but at least he can still use both hands. Again, better than handcuffs. </p>
<p>“Any day now,” Frankie grumbles.</p>
<p>“Jeez, next time you get that job,” he mutters. “Any chance I can borrow that knife?” </p>
<p>“It’s in my left boot,” she says. “Help yourself.”</p>
<p>He half-hops, half-stumbles the six feet over to her and unties her boot to extract the knife. It’s a small switchblade and he squints at it in suspicion for a moment. “This thing’s not gonna blow up if I push the wrong button, is it?”</p>
<p>Frankie laughs. “No, although that’s not a bad idea.”</p>
<p>He flicks open the blade and cuts through the zip tie around her wrists, nicking the backs of the zip ties around both of their ankles so that they appear secure but can easily be broken. The element of surprise, he’s learned, can be invaluable in a situation like this.</p>
<p>He shuffles back to his chair and sits down heavily. It’s not long before he hears footsteps again and Frankie turns her head sharply to look at him. </p>
<p>“Ready?” he mouths.</p>
<p>She nods, slumping forward slightly in her seat. He knows it's an act, a ploy to convince the guards that she’s less of a threat, but he can’t help wondering why she’d expect them to believe it.</p>
<p>The door opens to four guards and the first two head towards Frankie with barely a glance at Will. “Let’s see if you’re any more cooperative this time,” the man in front says.</p>
<p>“Go to hell,” she hisses. She waits until he’s an arm’s length away before swinging out with her legs. He goes down and the other three guards draw their guns. </p>
<p>Will lunges at the man closest to him, tackling him to the ground and wrenching the gun from his hand before using it to knock him out. He’s just gotten to his feet again when the guard nearest to the door starts to reach for his radio. Will shoots him twice in the chest before turning to Frankie. </p>
<p>She’s crouched next to the bodies of the other two guards. She removes the jacket and holster from the less bloody one before straightening with a wince.</p>
<p>That’s not a good sign. “Frankie, are you okay?” Will asks.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she says, and he can tell the response is instinctive. “You?” He nods and watches as she shrugs on the jacket and attaches the holster to her belt, her movements slow and deliberate. Her pupils are dilated and there’s just a trace of a slur in her speech.</p>
<p>“...You sure?”</p>
<p>“Yep.”</p>
<p>It’s a hair too cheerful and she won’t quite look him in the eyes. He knows how well she can lie; the fact that she can’t seem to pull this one off is cause for concern.</p>
<p>“Hey,” he says, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice, “come on. We’re partners. If you’re hurt, I need to know.”</p>
<p>“They may have drugged me,” she admits. “Just a little.”</p>
<p>“Frankie,” Will says as he takes the security jacket from the guard laying at his feet. “You didn’t think that was worth mentioning before?” He keeps his voice level; he’s angry that she kept it from him but right now anger is not a productive emotion.</p>
<p>Frankie shrugs. “Wasn’t much we could do about it.”</p>
<p>Will sighs in frustration. He knows she considers that to be a sufficient explanation but they really need to have a chat at some point about what one should and shouldn’t keep from their partner. “What did they give you?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, it’s not like it had a nice helpful label.” She frowns. “I was kinda hoping it was just saline, but it looks like these guys were a little more adventurous.”</p>
<p>“Well that’s great.”</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” she insists, “we just need to finish this fast.”</p>
<p>“We’re not-- no, we’re getting out of here before you get any worse.” He says it firmly but she shakes her head.</p>
<p>“Will, we’re already in the compound. Someone has to get to that disk before they sell it and there’s not enough time to send in another team.”</p>
<p>He hates that she has a point. “You sure you’re up to this?” He’s not sure why he’s even asking; it’s not like she’s going to say no.</p>
<p>“I’m sure.” She opens the door and peers out into the hall. “We came from that way,” she says with a nod to the left, “and the disk is in a room near the center, so I’d guess we make a right.” The words come out just slightly slower than usual and he can tell she’s making an effort to enunciate clearly. </p>
<p>He wishes he could just tell her to stay put while he finds the disk but he knows there’s about a zero percent chance she’d listen. At least this way he can keep an eye on her. “Alright, let’s go,” he says.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are a lot of rooms in the compound, it turns out, which do not contain the disk they’re looking for. </p><p>“Would it really be too much to ask for someone to have left, like, a map lying around?” Frankie grumbles as they enter a room which is empty except for two chairs and, inexplicably, a cat calendar hanging on the far wall.</p><p>They leave that room and almost immediately duck into the next one as they catch sight of a pair of guards. They might look like the other guards from a distance but they don’t want to risk getting too close.</p><p>“Any idea where we are?” Will asks, because his sense of direction is usually pretty good but this place is almost a literal maze.</p><p>Frankie looks around. “Seems like we’re in some kind of break room.”</p><p>There’s a couch facing a TV across from them and a table in the corner with an ancient-looking microwave.</p><p>“Classy,” Will says, wrinkling his nose.</p><p>Frankie shrugs. “Not everyone’s got the combined budget of the CIA and FBI to work with.”</p><p>“Obviously.”</p><p>There’s something sticking up from the couch and he walks around to get a better look. It turns out to be a rather large rifle-- neither helpful nor particularly alarming-- but he sees a familiar black bag on the seat next to it.</p><p>Will unzips the backpack and groans as he searches through the contents. The bag is his; he’s not gonna live that one down. His wallet and emergency granola bars are missing but the guards seem to have left everything else. He fishes out the spare comms and puts one in his ear, handing another to Frankie. They’re too far out of range to contact the rest of the team, but they’ll at least be able to talk to each other if they get separated.</p><p>The set of knives is too big to fit in any of his pockets so Will takes the spare clip instead. As useful as it might be to take the whole bag with him, he thinks it might look suspicious and he doesn’t want to push their luck.</p><p>Frankie walks back over to the door, opening it a crack and peering out into the hall. “They’re gone,” she says.</p><p>They head back into the hallway, which ends in yet another fork.</p><p>“We should split up,” Frankie says. “We’ll cover more ground.”</p><p>He knows she’s not wrong about that but he’s reluctant to leave her alone in an enemy compound. She seems to have anticipated this line of thinking. “Will, I can take care of myself.”</p><p>She stumbles as the words leave her mouth, bracing a hand against the wall to keep from falling, and Will raises his eyebrows. “Really?” He bites back further comments because he knows she considers concern for her wellbeing to be almost an insult, and while that’s something else that they’ll need to discuss eventually, he doesn’t want to get into it right now.</p><p>“Look, the sooner we find this disk and get out of here, the better.”</p><p>His gut is telling him it’s a bad idea to split up but he’s also well aware that they’re running out of time. “Fine,” he says at last, “But let me know if you start to feel any worse.”</p><p>“I will.” She sounds sincere but he’s pretty sure it’s an empty promise.</p><p>His apprehension must be showing because she reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder. She’s not usually a touchy person and he wonders if the physical contact is to ease his concern or her own.</p><p>“Hey, I’ll be fine,” she says quietly. “I’ve gotten out of situations far worse than this.”</p><p>“That’s comforting,” he says and she laughs. Then she turns and heads off down the hallway to her right. He sets off in the opposite direction hoping they haven’t just made a serious mistake.</p><p>---</p><p>He’s searching the last room in the hallway when he hears a muffled curse and then the slam of a door. </p><p>“You good?” he asks.</p><p>She doesn’t respond right away and all he can hear is her heavy breathing across the comms. “Guards,” she whispers at last. “Don’t think any of them noticed me.” </p><p>“Did you just let that door slam? Frankie, what--”</p><p>“Wasn’t intentional,” she grumbles, as though that makes the situation any less concerning.</p><p>“Will, there’s a safe in here,” she says after a moment. She’s not trying to escape detection anymore but her voice is still uncharacteristically soft.</p><p>“Where are you?”</p><p>There’s a slight pause before she answers and he tells himself not to read anything into it. “Go down that hallway and make a left and then… a right… and open the first door you see.”</p><p>“Okay, I’m coming.”</p><p>“Wow,” she says a moment later. “You’d think people like this would invest in a safe that’s a little harder to crack. I’ve got it.” And then, “Huh.”</p><p>He tries not to think about how faint she sounds even over the comms, about the confusion creeping into that last word. She’d told him she could do this. She damn well had better be right.</p><p>His resolve plummets along with his stomach at her next comment. </p><p>“Shit,” she hisses. “Timer.” </p><p>“Frankie, you need to get out of here!”</p><p>“Yeah, working on that.”</p><p>The sounds of her footsteps slow and then there's a soft crash. </p><p>“Hey, are you okay?” Will asks. He doesn’t bother trying to mask the concern in his voice.</p><p>“Floor’s a little wobbly,” she complains in a whisper. He can hear the grunt as she pushes herself back to her feet. </p><p>“Hang on, I’m almost there.”</p><p>“No.” The word is louder and more distinct than he’s heard from her in the past hour.</p><p>“The hell do you mean, no?”</p><p>“Will, I’m still too close.” He almost wishes he couldn’t make out the thin layer of panic buried in her determination. “If I don’t make it out, you need to take this disk back to the Hive. The case should protect it from the blast.”  </p><p>“Frankie--”</p><p>The explosion comes from somewhere in front of him, the force strong enough to knock him off his feet. He yells her name instinctively as he picks himself back up and takes off in the direction of the thickening smoke. The realization that comms are down does little to relieve his unease at the lack of a response.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Credit for the emergency granola bars goes to thesearchforbluejello</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Between the haze and the piles of rubble, he can barely make out the hallway Frankie had directed him to. He starts to pick his way across a stretch where a wall seems to have collapsed, stopping suddenly as he catches sight of a dark blue swath in the pile of concrete and metal across from him.</p>
<p>His heart sinks as he realizes what he’s looking at. Someone’s arm is sticking out of the wreckage and the hand is holding a thin black case. It has to be Frankie. He hopes to god it isn’t. He can’t see the rest of the person clearly but enough of them is under the debris that the chance of them walking away from this is pretty slim.</p>
<p>He walks around to the side to get a better view, his heart so far up his throat that he thinks it might make him sick. The first thing he notices is that it’s undoubtedly her. She’s lying face-up, covered in ash and bleeding from several small cuts on her face, but her features are clearly distinguishable. The second thing he notices is the rebar sticking out of her stomach. Her jacket is unzipped and lying open and he can make out a dark stain around the base of the rebar that’s started to spread out across her shirt. He’s seen injuries like this in Iraq but that doesn’t make the sight any easier to process. He can feel his body flooding with cold terror and a creeping sense of dread, drowning out his earlier anger at her like the deluge from a broken dam onto the land below.</p>
<p>Her eyes are closed and he can’t tell if she’s breathing from this distance but he worries that he might disrupt the debris pile by getting much nearer. Her legs are pinned by a slab of concrete and her left arm and shoulder are buried in the rubble. If she’s still alive, any movement of either her or the wreckage has the potential to cause more harm. “Frankie?” he asks cautiously and then yells it again when she shows no sign of motion. Practically speaking, he needs to know if she’s still alive because it determines what he’s going to need to do next. Less practically speaking, she’s lying right there and he can’t bear not knowing if he’s already too late.</p>
<p>He carefully climbs over what looks to be a support beam and kneels down within reach of her outstretched arm. He holds his breath as he pushes up the sleeve of her jacket to check her wrist for a pulse and feels a weight lift from his chest as he finds one, weak and rapid but present.</p>
<p>His concern for the disk in her hand is secondary. He knows the mission comes first like he knows the earth revolves around the sun: he’s been assured of its veracity by the highest authorities and yet it feels almost arbitrary, disconnected from his daily life. He knows that the information stored on that disk has the potential to start wars or to save thousands of lives, that he would tell Frankie to take it and leave if the situation were reversed, but he’s not sure he can bring himself to do the same.</p>
<p>He slides the case from her hand and she groans slightly, her fingers closing again around an empty palm.</p>
<p>“Will?” she mumbles a moment later. It’s so soft he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t watched her lips move. </p>
<p>She forces her eyes open when she doesn’t get an immediate response. “Will?” she says again.</p>
<p>“Hey, I’m right here.” He tries to keep his voice calm as she starts to turn towards him. “Don’t— don’t try to move—” </p>
<p>His warning is cut off by her scream as she tries and fails to sit up. He can’t tell if she didn’t hear him or didn’t care. She starts to reach her free hand instinctively towards her stomach and he grabs hold of it to stop her. He’s not sure she’s thinking clearly and he doesn’t want her trying to pull the rebar out; it may be a ghastly sight but it’s slowing the rate at which she’s losing blood. She flinches slightly at his touch but doesn’t pull away, instead tilting her head downwards to get a better view of the rest of her body. A few strands of hair fall into her eyes as she moves and he resists the urge to brush them away. He knows that she tries to keep physical contact to a minimum when she’s anxious and he doesn’t want to set her further on edge.</p>
<p>“The building fucking stabbed me,” she slurs with a surprising amount of indignation.</p>
<p>The gravity of the situation seems to sink in before he’s figured out how to reply to that. Fear is starting to replace the confusion on her face and her breathing is edging into hyperventilation.</p>
<p>“Will.” Her eyes are glassy and her face has gone deathly pale. “I can’t move--”</p>
<p>“I know,” he says as evenly as he can manage. “It’s okay.” It isn’t, though. He doesn’t need extensive medical training to know that she’s in bad shape, but he’s not sure how much of her response is from her injuries and how much is from the drugs. That’s making it hard for him to tell what she needs, although there’s not a whole lot he can do for her anyway. Right now, though, he has to calm her down before she ends up hurting herself even worse. She’s struggling to free her left arm and she’s given no indication that she’d heard his earlier words. </p>
<p>“Frankie, look at me,” he says to get her attention. She turns her head obligingly, blinking as she tries to focus on his face. “You’re gonna be okay, but you need to stay still and you need to breathe.”</p>
<p>She blinks again and then nods but her breath continues to come in quick, shallow bursts.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Will says, keeping his own breathing slow and even. “Just, in… out. Can you do that for me?” He knows that it probably hurts her to breathe too deeply but she tries anyway, making an effort to match the rhythm of her breaths to his own.</p>
<p>She’s finally starting to calm down when the building is rocked by another set of explosions. They’re more distant this time--these people would rather destroy their own compound than chance anyone getting out with that disk, he thinks--but still strong enough to shake the rubble surrounding them. Frankie cries out as the concrete slab shifts incrementally, closing her eyes and squeezing his hand so hard he thinks she might leave bruises.</p>
<p>She looks back up at him a moment later, her gaze sliding to somewhere near his shoulder. Her face is still lined with pain but she raises her eyebrows in concern, mumbling something that he can’t quite make out and then “...bleeding.”</p>
<p>Will forces out a sound that he thinks might have been a laugh, although the situation is far from funny. “That is one way to put it.”</p>
<p>She frowns and he can’t quite tell if she’d understood him.</p>
<p>“No,” she says after a long moment. “You.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” He looks down and finds that she’s right: there’s a long tear in the upper arm of his jacket and the surrounding fabric is soaked with blood. Something must have hit him during the first  explosion, he realizes. He needs to stop the bleeding but Frankie’s holding onto his other hand so tightly he’s not sure he could extract it even if he wanted to, so he decides it can wait. </p>
<p>“It’s not that bad,” he says, but she narrows her eyes, her face still full of worry. She’s never shown so much outright concern about his well-being and he finds the sudden development to be disconcerting. It’s not that she doesn’t care about him, for all that she might deny it. But there’s always been a practicality to it, a reluctance to let him know exactly what she’s feeling. It’s a defense mechanism of sorts, a kind of plausible deniability, and he doesn’t want to think too deeply about why she’s no longer willing or able to maintain it.</p>
<p>He also doesn’t want her wasting precious energy worrying about him right now. “Can you feel your legs?” he asks. It’s an obvious redirection and she frowns, unsatisfied, but doesn’t push the topic. </p>
<p>“Yeah,” she grits out after a pause that suggests she’d had to think about it. </p>
<p>“Well, that’s good,” he says cautiously. “That means there’s no spinal damage.” Probably. That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to try to move her, though.</p>
<p>He takes his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and turns it on. There’s no service here, because apparently a little luck is too much to ask for today. She tries to lay quietly as he considers his options but he can tell her breathing is becoming more labored. The stain on her shirt is steadily creeping outwards and her skin is losing what little color it had to begin with.</p>
<p>It’ll be another hour before anyone comes looking for them and even longer before they’re found here. He’s not sure she’ll make it that long and he knows the information on the disk will be useless by then. She really had been careful not to leave him with a choice, the more uncharitable part of his brain suggests. </p>
<p>“I have to go back to the base.” He starts to let go of her hand and she tries without much success to strengthen her grip.</p>
<p>“Will,” she breaths, her eyes wide. “Please don’t go.”</p>
<p>He can barely make out the words but it still feels like a punch to the gut. She hasn’t shown fear so clearly since France and it’s not him that she’s afraid of this time but somehow that makes it even worse. </p>
<p>He knows that she’d understand, that she’d tell him to leave if she were thinking any more clearly. She’s supposed to be the logical one in the partnership, the one who doesn’t let emotion get in the way of the job. He watches her now, blinking slowly up at him as she struggles to stay awake, pain and fear written clearly on her face, and he wonders just how much of that has always been a facade. </p>
<p>He knows she’s not afraid of death, knows that on some level she still doesn’t expect to see old age. But there’s a hell of a difference between taking a bullet and the slow agony that this is going to be, even if she lives through it. He doesn’t want to leave her alone but he can’t come up with a better alternative.</p>
<p>“Frankie, I love you, but I can’t stay with you right now.” He freezes as the words leave his mouth. He hadn’t meant to say that first part out loud, hadn’t even realized he was considering it. </p>
<p>That he loves her is undeniable but the feeling is deeper and more dangerous than the purely romantic love he’s felt in the past. He thought the box he’d stored it in was fireproof but he’s starting to feel the flames licking at his feet. There’s no change in her expression and he can’t even tell if she’d heard him but he’s not sure it matters; that piece of kindling is bound to her fate just as strongly.</p>
<p>Her grip on his hand is starting to weaken and it’s taking longer for her to open her eyes again each time she blinks. She’s losing the battle with consciousness and he doesn’t know whether he should be disappointed or relieved. He knows her best chance of survival comes from him getting back to the base as quickly as possible, that every minute he stays with her sets back the arrival of the medical help she so desperately needs. He tells himself that he’s only staying to keep her calm while she’s still awake, but he knows himself well enough to recognize that that’s not quite true. </p>
<p>She’s alive right now and as much as he’d like to be the optimist here, he knows there’s a good chance that this is the last time he’ll see her like that. He takes a moment just to look at her and to watch her looking back at him, though her reactions are slow and her eyes are clouded with pain. He knows that by leaving, he’d be taking the risk that she’ll never look at him again. He knows that by staying, he’d ensure it.</p>
<p>He has to leave, for both her sake and for everyone whose lives will be affected by that disk. He’s certain of that. But it also feels like the cruelest act of betrayal he could possibly commit. Because what she’s scared of right now is not dying but dying alone, and she’s never asked so much of him but she might never have the chance to ask him for anything else.</p>
<p>He wants to scream and he wants to cry but he can’t let himself react outwardly; she’s still watching him and he doesn’t want his reaction to scare her. And so he sits quietly and he holds her hand and he hopes and he dreads.</p>
<p>It’s another few moments before she breaks the silence. “Will,” she says, and it’s just a hint of a whisper. “Love you too.” He doesn’t think it’s meant to be a heartfelt declaration. It reminds him too much of the end of a phone conversation between family members: casual but intimate. She doesn’t think she has much time but she isn’t quite ready to say goodbye and the realization makes his blood run cold.</p>
<p>Her eyelids flutter closed again and this time they don’t reopen. There’s no pressure left in her grip but he waits another few seconds before drawing his hand away. He doesn’t want to leave her but he can’t bear to listen as she struggles more and more for each breath, to watch as the last bit of color leaves her face and to feel her skin grow cold. </p>
<p>It would be so much easier, he thinks, if he were still mad at her. The anger is still there somewhere, buried under the layers of worry and fear, and he almost wishes he could dredge it back up.</p>
<p>It would be easier, he thinks, if he could feel nothing at all. He’s always prided himself on his emotional intelligence, never envied Frankie’s calculated lack of sensitivity, but he’s reminded now of the downsides of letting oneself feel so deeply.</p>
<p>He distracts himself temporarily by looking down at his arm. He’s still too hyped up on adrenaline to feel much but the cut has bled a concerning amount and he knows that blood loss could become a serious problem if he continues to ignore it. He shrugs off his jacket, rolling it up and tying it as tightly as he can around his bicep before he turns his attention back to Frankie. She hasn’t stirred and so he forces himself to stand on stiff legs, wiping away tears that he no longer has a reason to hold back.</p>
<p>He steps back over the support beam, walking away quickly and forcing himself not to look back at her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Navigating the remains of the compound proves easier than he’d expected and he soon finds himself back in the parking lot.</p>
<p>Their car’s windows have been shattered by one of the blasts but by some miracle it looks otherwise intact. Will opens the driver’s side door, wiping the glass off the seat with a spare jacket before climbing in. He checks his phone again, on the off chance that a few hundred feet have made any difference. They haven’t.</p>
<p>He has to slide the seat back a few inches before he can sit comfortably; Frankie had gotten to choose the car this time, which meant she had also gotten to drive. He turns the key in the ignition and startles when the radio turns on as well. It’s set to a country station he’s pretty sure Frankie chose just to annoy him and it seems unfair somehow to change it now. He can almost feel her absence in the car as though it’s its own entity, one that makes his eyes sting and thickens the air until he chokes on it.</p>
<p>He thought leaving would be easier when he could no longer actually see her but heading out of this parking lot alone feels like abandoning her a second time. He tries not to think about the possibility of her waking up alone in that hallway, calling for him before realizing that he’s no longer there. He tries not to think about the possibility of her not waking up at all. </p>
<p>Instead, he focuses on the sorry excuse for the road in front of him. The compound is located in what might actually be the middle of nowhere—he’s pretty sure they’d passed a sign for a town legitimately called Podunk on the way there—and ease of travel was apparently not high up on the list of priorities of whoever built the roads. They’re narrow and winding and to call the surface pavement would be generous. Will swears as he approaches yet another tight curve and hits the gas none too gently as the road straightens. </p>
<p>He’s at twenty over the speed limit by the time he reaches the main highway. It isn’t until he blinks and is suddenly halfway onto the shoulder that he thinks maybe he should slow down. He’ll be no help to anyone if he crashes the car. The adrenaline rush from earlier must be starting to fade because he hadn’t been nearly this tired half an hour ago. His arm is throbbing and he takes his eyes off the road for a split second to see that the makeshift bandage is soaked through with blood. That does explain the lightheadedness, he thinks.</p>
<p>He passes a mileage sign that tells him he’s seventeen miles from the base and his phone beeps in his pocket, letting him know that he now has service. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone on the team right now, to explain that Frankie is dying and he’d left her behind. He doesn’t want to hear the fear and the pity that he knows Susan won’t be able to quite keep out of her voice, the flat anger that Jai won’t bother to hide. It’s not that he’s ashamed to tell them about the decision he had to make. He knows that he’s done the right thing and the guilt that he carries is private. But the rest of the team still lives in a reality where both he and Frankie made it out of the compound and a part of him is reluctant to burst that bubble. He has to tell them what happened, though, to give them as much time as possible to come up with a plan, so he pulls out his phone and makes a call.</p>
<p>Ray answers on the second ring. “Hey man, what’s up?” he asks. He sounds cheerful but they both know Will only calls him when something’s gone very wrong.</p>
<p>“You need to get an emergency response team to the compound. Now.” Will knows he sounds a little frantic but he can’t quite bring himself to care. “And a medevac.”</p>
<p>“On it,” Ray says automatically. “What happened? Are you guys okay?” </p>
<p>“Yeah, Ray, I’m asking for a medevac because everything went so goddamn well,” Will snaps. “There was an explosion. Frankie’s trapped under the rubble and she’s bleeding out.”</p>
<p>“Shit.”</p>
<p>“I’ll be back at the base in twenty. I’ve got the disk.” He hangs up before Ray can ask him anything else. He’s not in the mood to answer unnecessary questions. </p>
<p>---</p>
<p>He lets the door slam behind him as he enters the workroom. Susan looks up from her computer, freezing when she catches sight of him. “Oh my god, Will, are you okay?”</p>
<p>She’s staring at him with an expression just short of horror, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open, and he stops to consider what he must look like. He hadn’t been quite as close to the blast but his whole body is covered in various amounts of blood and dust, making it seem like he’s in much worse shape than he really is.</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” he snaps. “Where’s Ray?”</p>
<p>She furrows her brow, taken aback by his curt tone, but she doesn’t comment. Ray must have shared what Will told him with the rest of the team, and Will finds himself glad that he doesn’t have to repeat it. Susan nods to where Ray is standing, arguing with someone on the phone. </p>
<p>Will drops the case with the disk on Standish’s desk as he walks by. Standish grabs it without a word, opening the case and sticking the disk into the slot in his computer. He raises his head as the files transfer, looking at Will with a face full of uncertainty, like he wants to ask a question but can’t quite find the right words. Standish isn’t usually one to hesitate and Will wishes he could provide some kind of reassurance, wishes he could honestly claim that he’s alright and that they’ll get Frankie out of this. He’s not sure whether either of those statements would be truthful, though, and he doesn’t have it in him to lie, so he keeps walking.</p>
<p>Ray finally hangs up the phone, still swearing as Will approaches. “ETA on the medical team?” Will asks.</p>
<p>Ray winces. “I can’t get ahold of Casey and I don’t have high enough clearance to authorize it myself.”</p>
<p>“Well, figure something out, alright,” Will spits. “If she dies because you’re too fucking incompetent to get her help, I’m gonna—“</p>
<p>“Will,” Susan warns.</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” Ray says mildly, scrolling through some kind of list on his phone. </p>
<p>It’s not okay. Nothing about the situation is remotely okay. “I’m going back,” Will says before turning to leave. “They had better get there before I do.”</p>
<p>“Will,” Susan calls after him. “Let me at least look at your arm.”</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” he growls without looking back at her. He recognizes belatedly that maybe he’s being a little harsh, that they’re trying their best to work with what little information he’s provided. But more important right now is the fact that Frankie’s still at the compound. He can’t afford to stay here and chat. He doesn’t let himself consider the possibility that they’ve already run out of time.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>There’s a medical helicopter in the compound’s parking lot when Will arrives. He wonders briefly how many favors Ray had to call in to make that happen, then decides he doesn’t really care.</p>
<p>Will parks the car, opening the door as a bearded man in an EMT uniform walks up to him. “Are you Will Chase?” he asks, his voice authoritative but betraying no emotion.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” It comes out rougher than Will intends and he thinks his heartbeat has increased by a factor of ten. </p>
<p>“Thank god,” the man sighs. “She’s been asking for you. We need to start an IV but we can’t get near her.”</p>
<p>Will frowns. “Why not?”</p>
<p>“She’s confused and she’s scared. We need to give her fluids before we can remove the slab that’s pinning her legs, but she panics when we try to do that. The rebar could do more damage and the whole rubble pile could destabilize if she keeps moving. We thought maybe talking to you would help.”</p>
<p>They’re wearing blue jackets, Will realizes. Frankie probably thinks they’re the facility guards trying to inject her with something else. “Yeah, of course,” he says. He fights to control his irrational anger at the team for something they didn’t know would cause her to react, at himself for not being there for her soon enough.</p>
<p>He follows the man into what’s left of the building, impatient to get to Frankie and at the same time dreading what he knows he’s going to find. </p>
<p>There’s a group of people standing next to a pile of equipment in the hallway where the wall collapsed, a mix of EMTs and local agents talking urgently amongst themselves. He acknowledges them with a brief nod as he makes his way to where he knows Frankie is lying.</p>
<p>Much of the debris around her has been removed and the larger, more dangerous pieces have been secured. Someone has wrapped gauze around the rebar where it’s sticking into her, to keep it from moving and to minimize any additional blood loss, but her shirt is already soaked through with blood and there’s a dark stain on the concrete around her. Her hair is damp, matted down with sweat and blood, and he can see the muddy tracks of tears running down her face.</p>
<p>He’s not even sure how she’s still conscious at this point but her eyes are open wide and the expression on her face is one of sheer terror. He can just barely hear her breath coming in short gasps, the combined result of fear and shock.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Will says softly as he kneels down next to her.</p>
<p>She turns her head to get a better look at him, squinting as though she’s trying to force her eyes to focus. “Will? I thought— where did you go?” It’s not an accusation but he almost wishes it was; he knows how to deal with her when she’s angry but seeing her like this is just short of terrifying. She sounds confused now more than anything, her voice barely above a whisper.</p>
<p>“I came back,” he says over the lump that’s quickly forming in his throat. “Frankie, I’m so sorry, I had to get you help. But I’m here now.”</p>
<p>She watches him carefully for a few seconds before shaking her head slightly. “No,” she breathes.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Will asks.</p>
<p>“No,” she says more firmly. “You’re not real. None of you are real.”</p>
<p>“Hey, I’m very real.”</p>
<p>She starts to laugh and it turns into a groan of pain. “That’s what you said last time.”</p>
<p>Will frowns. He’s definitely never said that, which means she’s been hallucinating, which is more than a little concerning.</p>
<p>“I’m going to hold your hand, okay?” He announces it more to prevent the contact from startling her than because he’s truly asking for her permission, but he waits for her to reply before he moves.</p>
<p>“Yeah, okay.”</p>
<p>He takes her hand in his, tries not to concentrate on how cool and clammy her skin has become. “Can you feel that?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Think so, yeah.”</p>
<p>“Good,” he says. “That’s good. See? I’m really here.”</p>
<p>She narrows her eyes as she considers the statement. “Okay,” she says at last and Will breathes a sigh of relief.</p>
<p>“These people are trying to help you,” he explains. “They can get you out of here, but you need to let them do their job.”</p>
<p>She’s silent for a moment and he’s not sure if she’s still trying to process what he’d said or if she’s deciding whether she believes him. “Okay,” she says again.</p>
<p>He waves the EMT over and Frankie tenses as the man takes out a syringe, turning her head to look back at Will with wide eyes. “You said—”</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” he tells her, squeezing her hand. She relaxes just a touch and he’s flooded with relief. She’s not even certain he’s real but she’s decided to trust him with her life. He thinks he’d be honored if he wasn’t so scared for her, if he hadn’t just left her here to die.</p>
<p>“This is going to help with the pain,” the man says calmly. “You’re barely even going to feel it.”</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” Will repeats when she continues to eye the man warily. “Just trust me.”</p>
<p>She stays still long enough for him to inject her. “I’m going to start with the fluids now,” the EMT explains as he produces an IV catheter. Frankie just nods, blinking rapidly as she struggles to stay awake. She doesn’t try to resist as he starts the IV and Will can’t tell if she’s actually beginning to calm down or it’s just the painkillers taking effect.</p>
<p>The rest of the team makes their way over and she shows no reaction as they crowd around her. She lets out a weak cry of pain and confusion as they start to move the slab off her legs. There’s no strength left in her grip and Will’s heart sinks as he realizes that she doesn’t have enough energy left to scream.</p>
<p>Her eyes roll back a moment later and she’s fully unconscious again by the time they’re able to move her. Will watches as the EMTs lift her onto the stretcher, securing an oxygen mask around her mouth and nose. He follows close behind as they bring her out of the building and lift her into the waiting helicopter, not wanting to get in the way but not wanting to let her out of his sight.</p>
<p>“Are you coming with us?” the man with the beard shouts at Will over the sound of the blades. Will nods. Of course he’s coming. He climbs into the helicopter, settling into the seat he’s directed to as the team makes sure everything is secure for liftoff.</p>
<p>“The closest level-one trauma center is a forty-minute flight from here,” the man with the beard tells Will after a moment. “We’ve told your team we’re en-route.”</p>
<p>Will nods. He sits helplessly as the team works to keep her stable. She’ll need surgery to fix whatever damage was done by the rebar and he knows they’re not equipped to do that kind of thing in the air, but they can try to keep her from getting any worse until they reach the hospital.</p>
<p>“Oxygen levels are still falling,” one of the other men yells. “We’re gonna need to intubate.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t react as the man opens her mouth, doesn’t move as he guides the tube down her throat. It’s not surprising on an intellectual level but her lack of even minimal resistance makes Will feel sick. He can’t bring himself to look away, doesn’t think it would be right to shield himself from what she’s going through. </p>
<p>The whole process feels deeply invasive and yet deeply impersonal. It doesn’t seem fair, somehow, that these people can see her as just another trauma patient. That they know her pulse rate and her blood oxygen levels but they’ll never know what it sounds like when she laughs.</p>
<p>Will watches as her chest rises and falls, as the machine fills her lungs with oxygen and empties them of carbon dioxide. He only realizes he’s crying again when he notices one of the EMTs looking at him with a sympathetic expression.</p>
<p>“We’re doing everything we can for her right now,” she says before turning her attention back to one of the monitors. He appreciates that she doesn’t make false promises, that she doesn’t try to tell him everything’s going to be okay, but the lack of reassurance is still unnerving.</p>
<p>It feels like hours before they reach the hospital, the helicopter landing on the roof as the moon is just beginning to rise above the horizon. And then suddenly the blades stop moving and the doors are opening and doctors are coming in to take her away. </p>
<p>Will follows them inside, reaching the second set of sliding doors before a nurse gently pushes him back.</p>
<p>“They’re taking her to surgery now,” the nurse says. “You need to say here.” He pauses, frowning as he gets a better look at Will. “Actually, you should really go to the emergency room.”</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” Will protests, although he knows he knows it’s not technically true.</p>
<p>“You’re bleeding,” the nurse points out. “Come on, follow me.”</p>
<p>“I’m aware of that,” Will snaps. “But I can’t just--”</p>
<p>He’d been about to say that he can’t leave her but he realizes halfway through that that’s no longer quite the issue.  By leaving this room, he’s acknowledging that there’s nothing more he can do for her. He knows it’s true, knows that her life is no longer in his hands, but there’s a part of him that is reluctant to accept that because it feels more like a failure than an accomplishment. </p>
<p>He’d had a sense of purpose with his earlier actions. Bring Frankie help, keep her calm, get her out of that building alive. And he’d done that, but it hadn’t come with the sense of relief he’d anticipated. He feels untethered now, drained and directionless but still plagued by fear.</p>
<p>The nurse seems to understand what he’s going through. “Waiting here isn’t going to help her,” he says, not unkindly, before Will has managed to arrange any of his thoughts into a coherent statement. “We’ll let you know when she gets out of surgery, but it probably won’t be before you get back.”</p>
<p>It might be a practical argument but it’s not a comforting one. “Yeah, okay,” Will relents. He lets the man lead him down a maze of hallways suffused with the scent of disinfectant, each with white tiled floors and cream-colored walls reflecting the harsh fluorescence of the overhead lighting. He tries to focus on the pictures and posters on the wall as he walks past, to memorize the layout of the hospital as though it were a building he was trying to break into, to keep his mind occupied by anything other than the thought of his partner on an operating table. He’s not successful.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Posting this a bit late today because doing prep work to teach online classes is just so much fun</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Susan walks into the waiting room to find Will sitting in a chair against the wall, wearing a pair of clean scrubs that expose the fresh bandages on his arm and around his wrists. His face is cleaner now but his eyes are still red. He’s staring intently at his phone but she can see from where she’s standing that the screen is blank. He looks up after a moment with an expression that resembles relief but she doesn’t miss the apprehension hiding in his features.</p>
<p>Will stands up as she approaches, putting his phone in his pocket and wrapping his arms around her as she reaches out to hug him. She knows him well enough that she doesn’t need to ask if he’s okay. He isn’t and he won’t be anytime soon, and he knows she understands that and he doesn’t need to pretend.</p>
<p>Susan understands that he can make use of his emotions in a way that most spies can’t-- in a way that she can’t. He’s a more convincing liar than she is because somehow his words are never complete fabrications and he’s able to draw on his own feelings to inspire confidence and trust in others. He doesn’t try to separate Will the Human from Will the Agent-- she’s not sure he knows how to-- and that integration has served him well but she knows that it doesn’t make this any easier right now.</p>
<p>She pulls away a minute later, her own eyes just slightly damp. She hasn’t cried yet. She will eventually, she knows, because one of her best friends is fighting for her life and that’s terrifying even if she doesn’t know exactly what happened. Right now, though, she has more immediate concerns: Will is still looking at her with an uncharacteristically vacant expression and Jai has said about five words in the last three hours.</p>
<p>She can’t quite read Jai now and that fact itself is concerning. He’s not normally a talkative person but his silence now is brooding, his features stiff. She would have guessed that he’d turn in on himself in a situation like this, and that does seem to be happening on one level. But she’s gotten glimpses of the pressure building beneath the surface: the way he’d asked her through clenched teeth to please, stop talking, on the ride over, the flash of anger in his eyes as he caught sight of Will. She knows there’s only a matter of time before something sets him off.</p>
<p>She needs to mitigate the damage it will cause, to make sure Will and Jai are both alright before she can really let herself process any of this. And she’s aware that it’s maybe not the healthiest approach but it’s what she knows how to do. She’s not one to suppress emotion indefinitely: she knows it can be locked up temporarily but never fully secured. She’s learned that it’s safer to store unruly emotions in cages just long enough to let them settle down and to complete the task at hand, to release them before they break down the doors themselves.</p>
<p>“What the hell happened?” Jai finally demands as Susan sits down in the plastic chair beside Will.</p>
<p>“Jai,” Susan says. It’s less of a warning and more of a reprimand because they’d discussed this on the ride over. Or at least, she’d discussed it with herself before he’d asked her to stop talking. It hadn’t been her best move, she recognizes now. </p>
<p>“I waited,” Jai says stiffly. “That was me being considerate.”</p>
<p>Susan frowns but Will starts talking before she can intervene further. “It’s my fault,” he says. “We got caught and they drugged her. ”</p>
<p>“Will, that’s not your fault.” She knows he has a tendency to blame himself in situations like this, even when there was nothing he could have done.</p>
<p>Will shakes his head. “She wanted to keep looking for the disk, afterwards. She told me she’d be fine.”</p>
<p>“And you believed her.” It’s not quite a question: Jai’s words are flat and there’s a little too much of an edge to his voice.</p>
<p>“She’s my partner,” Will growls. “I thought that maybe she would tell me the truth about something like that.” </p>
<p>Jai raises an eyebrow. “This is Frankie. Her definition of ‘fine’ is that she can still complete the mission. It has very little to do with her actual wellbeing. You should know that by now.”</p>
<p>The words are directed at Will but his voice is bitter even before he reaches the last sentence and Susan knows that it’s not really Will he’s angry with. She’s not sure Will can see that, though, because he looks hurt for just a second before his expression hardens.</p>
<p>“Guys,” she says firmly, before Will gets a chance to speak, “enough.”</p>
<p>She knows from experience that Will has a mean streak that surfaces when he’s upset, and she knows that the fight Jai’s trying to pick won’t be helpful for anyone.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t take an expert to recognize that both men care about Frankie. And although they might deny it, might not quite realize it, they’re both angry with her. But she’s not here right now to defend herself and they’re both too scared of losing her to consider why she makes them so angry so they’re taking it out on each other instead.</p>
<p>She thinks that maybe Will recognizes this because he looks over at her and nods, his eyes not quite meeting hers. Jai huffs, letting his suitcase clatter onto the coffee table in front of them before sitting down next to her. He leans forward to open it, taking out a small screwdriver and what look to be several scraps of metal without hesitation. This isn’t the first time he’s been in this situation, she realizes. He’s come prepared.</p>
<p>Will’s staring straight ahead again, and for all her training, Susan can’t think of anything to do for him right now. She takes his hand in hers, feels him squeeze back ever so slightly, and they wait.<br/>---</p>
<p>Purgatory, Will thinks, might well be a hospital waiting room. He’s not sure how much time passes as he continues to stare at the entrance without really taking anything in. There’s still no light coming in from behind the curtains and it feels like too much effort to take out his phone and check the time. He wishes the doctor would come back immediately and he wishes he’d never see her again. He needs to know if Frankie’s alive like he needs air; the uncertainty is choking him but he’s desperately afraid to give up the small breath of hope that comes with it. </p>
<p>He doesn’t remember falling asleep but suddenly Susan is shaking him gently, telling him to wake up. There’s a woman in blue scrubs standing by the door, her face frustratingly impassive. <br/>“Will Chase?” she asks the room.</p>
<p>Will stands up, ignoring the protest from his stiff joints. “Is she alive?” he asks breathlessly.</p>
<p>“Could you please come with me?”</p>
<p>“With all due respect, doctor, I’m just going to tell them whatever you tell me. And I think everyone would prefer just to hear it from you.”</p>
<p>The doctor purses her lips. “Are you all family?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Susan says and Will nods in confirmation. For a given definition of family.</p>
<p>She makes a note on her clipboard before looking back up at them. “Francesca survived the surgery but is still in critical condition. She may not make it through the night.”</p>
<p>She’s alive. He’d barely allowed himself to hope for so much and yet it doesn’t feel entirely real now that he’s hearing it. The use of her full name is jarring, like this is all somehow happening to someone who is almost but not quite Frankie, except he knows too well that that can’t be the case.</p>
<p>It takes Will a moment to realize that the woman has been talking and he’s missed nearly everything she’d just said. “Can we see her?” Will asks.</p>
<p>“One at a time.”</p>
<p>Will looks over at Jai, who shakes his head. “You go,” he says to Will. His voice is firm but there’s something close to fear in his eyes and Will knows that he’s not just making the offer out of generosity.</p>
<p>Will gets up and follows the doctor down a short hallway. She stops at a door and turns to face him. “She’s still intubated and she’s not going to wake up soon,” the doctor says and Will wonders how obvious it had been that he’d zoned out earlier. “There are a lot of tubes and wires and they might look scary but they’re helping her breathe.”</p>
<p>“I know,” he says, because it isn’t his first time in a situation like this. “But thanks.”</p>
<p>She narrows her eyes just slightly before nodding and walking away.</p>
<p>Will takes a deep breath before entering the room. He has a good idea of what he’s going to find but that doesn’t make it any easier to actually see her lying deathly still in the middle of the hospital bed, her eyes closed and her face disturbingly expressionless.</p>
<p>He can hear the sounds of the ventilator and the machine measuring her vitals and yet he’s struck by the urge to hold her just to make sure she’s really still alive. One of her hands is connected to an array of tubes and the other is in a cast that extends to her elbow, so he takes a seat next to her and settles for a hand on her shoulder.</p>
<p>Someone has washed her face, removing the blood and the grime from the explosion. Her skin looks almost translucent in the harsh lighting, the lack of color drawing out the deep purple under her eyes and along her cheekbone. The cuts and abrasions from the shrapnel mottle the rest of her face in shades of pink and red and there’s a butterfly bandage closing a cut above her eyebrow. She looks like she’s been through hell but he knows what he’s seeing are the least serious of her injuries.</p>
<p>She probably can’t hear him but he thinks he needs to say something, if only to make the space feel a little less mechanical and a little more human.</p>
<p>“Frankie, you can make it through this. You have to, okay? Because you said you’d teach me how to make your pasta sauce and we haven’t tried that bakery down the street yet and you’ve never even seen Field of Dreams.” He can feel his voice starting to break but he keeps talking. “Because you still owe me five bucks from last Tuesday and honestly that would just be rude.” He’s sobbing by the time he finishes the sentence. “Please, Frankie,” he adds. He can’t think of anything else to say, so he sits with her and he lets himself cry.</p>
<p>He’s always believed that crying was cathartic, that you have to experience your emotions before you can process them and move forward. But there’s no sense of finality here, nothing except the unknown stretching in front of him, offering the smallest glimpses of hope. They feel like shards of glass, slicing into his hands as he grabs them and holds them close, but he refuses to consider letting them go. He sits with her for another few minutes, watching as the machines breathe for her, before he forces himself to leave.</p>
<p>Jai and Susan both look up as he walks back into the room and he can see questions on their faces that he can’t quite translate and wouldn’t be sure how to answer. Jai stands as Will sinks into the chair next to Susan. “Third door on the left,” Will tells him, his voice rough.</p>
<p>“You look terrible,” Susan tells him gently as Jai leaves. She doesn’t tell him to find a hotel or to try to get some sleep and he’s grateful for that. He doesn’t have the energy for an argument but he has no intention of leaving this room anytime soon. </p>
<p>He doesn’t want to go to sleep. He doesn’t want to close his eyes and see Frankie lying motionless in that hospital bed, hear her begging him not to leave. But his body is telling him that he’s been awake for too long. He leans back in the chair, tilting slightly to the side to rest his head on Susan’s shoulder. He can feel Susan squeeze his hand as he struggles to keep his eyes open, and then nothing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jai comes back into the waiting room just after seven the next morning. He looks like he hasn’t slept and Will knows that’s a distinct possibility. “They said she’s doing well,” he announces, his voice flat. “She’s no longer critical but they don’t know when she’ll wake up. They’re running some more tests right now.” He sounds dazed and tired, like he’s repeating the information without having quite processed it himself.</p>
<p>“That’s good, right? That’s progress,” Susan says, and Will can’t tell if she’s saying it for Jai’s benefit or her own. She looks at Jai, still standing in the doorway. “Can I hug you?” </p>
<p>“Yeah,” Jai says, and ends up patting her back awkwardly as she wraps him in a bear hug.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna grab some coffee,” she declares, stepping back after a moment. “What am I getting you guys?”</p>
<p>“Coffee would be great,” Will says. He’d managed a few hours of sleep during the night but it hadn’t made much of a difference. He tilts his head to the side experimentally, stretching out his arms in front of him, and is pretty sure the whole room can hear his stiff joints crack. His whole body is sore, as much the result of the explosion yesterday as the night in the waiting room chair. But none of that matters because they said Frankie was doing well.</p>
<p>Jai nods in agreement, sitting down and opening the briefcase that he’d left on the table. </p>
<p>“Other than coffee,” Susan clarifies with a sigh. “Come on, you guys need to eat.” </p>
<p>“So do you,” Will points out and she gives him a thin smile.</p>
<p>“Fair enough. I’ll bring something back for you guys.”</p>
<p>Will is silent for a moment after she leaves, watching Jai fiddle with scraps of metal.</p>
<p>He’s not sure how long Jai and Frankie have known each other, but he knows they get along so well because they don’t deal with people the same way most of the rest of humanity does. Frankie’s convinced herself emotional intimacy is a liability and, as far as he can tell, the intricacies of human interaction have always been something of a foreign language to Jai.</p>
<p>They can exist in each other’s space, free of the expectations that come from interaction with most other people. It’s not a friendship that Will understands, exactly, but it’s one he’s come to respect.</p>
<p>“How do you do it?” Will asks, because the silence is eating at him and because he’s genuinely curious. “How can you care about her so deeply and watch her risk her life over and over for the agency?” </p>
<p>Jai shrugs. “There’s a reason we don’t work together in the field. We’re very different people, Frankie and I,” he says. “I plan and she just… acts. Constantly and unpredictably.” He smiles slightly. “It’s infuriating.</p>
<p>“We learned a long time ago not to interfere with each other’s methods. It was just the two of us, mostly, and we couldn’t afford to change.”</p>
<p>Jai stops, watching Will carefully for a reaction before he continues. “So you accept that she’s her own person. That she’s weighed the risks and she knows what she’s doing. And then you do everything in your power to mitigate those risks and make sure she stays safe.”</p>
<p>“Because you know it’s a higher priority for you than it is for her.” The words taste bitter as they leave his mouth but Jai just shrugs.</p>
<p>“She’s come a long way,” he says and Will raises his eyebrows. “You’ll have to ask her-- it’s not my story to tell.”</p>
<p>Will tries to imagine Frankie as Jai had first encountered her: young and ruthless and probably terrified. He knows no one becomes an assassin with the intention of saving for retirement and the thought of Frankie choosing that life makes him unreasonably angry. </p>
<p>He must be letting his thoughts show on his face because Jai is studying him again. “You love her,” Jai says. It’s almost but not quite a question.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I do,” Will admits.</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Why do I love her?” he repeats, because he isn’t sure how to answer the question. It’s like asking why humans tell stories, why they paint handprints and horses on the walls of caves. Part of it is instinct, this deep desire for connection with another person. Part of it is a conscious decision, an attempt to make the world feel a little softer, a little less impersonal. There’s no objective reason, no external motivation, but everything inside him is telling him it’s the right thing to do.</p>
<p>“Because she’s loyal and relentless and she tells me when I’m being an ass and sometimes she even laughs at my stupid jokes.” But that’s not quite it, not really. He loves her because she’s Frankie and she might piss him off on a daily basis but he can’t imagine feeling any other way.</p>
<p>Jai wrinkles his brow slightly and Will thinks he’s about to ask another question but just nods instead. “You two deserve each other,” he mutters, turning away from Will and picking up his screwdriver. It’s not an altogether unfriendly gesture but it’s a signal that the conversation is over.</p>
<p>--- </p>
<p>Susan comes back fifteen minutes later with a tray of coffees and a pile of sad-looking sandwiches.</p>
<p>“Breakfast,” she announces with just a little too much enthusiasm. “Also, Ray called, he’s on his way over with Standish.”</p>
<p>“Great,” Will says flatly, because the last thing he wants to do right now is talk to Ray. He grabs a cup from the tray when Susan holds it out, taking a cautious sip and grimacing before taking another.</p>
<p>When Will was seven, his brother had bet him a toy truck that he couldn’t eat the entirety of one of his sister’s mud pies. It was the first and last time he’d eaten dirt but the flavor of the hospital coffee reminds him of the experience.</p>
<p>Jai studies Will’s expression and, after a moment’s hesitation, sets his own coffee down on the table untouched. He picks up a sandwich, inspecting it carefully before taking a bite. </p>
<p>“Is it edible?” Will asks, more for something to say than because he’s particularly invested in the answer.</p>
<p>Jai chews, narrowing his eyes as he considers the question. “I think so.”</p>
<p>“Good enough for me,” Will says.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The sandwiches are long gone and the sunlight is shining in through the windows by the time Ray and Standish arrive.</p>
<p>“Hey guy,” Ray says. “Everyone’s luggage is in the trunk.” </p>
<p>Will hadn’t even thought about the luggage he’d left behind in the hotel four hours away, in what feels like another lifetime, but he admits to himself that it was a thoughtful thing to do. He can’t wear these scrubs indefinitely. </p>
<p>“Thanks,” he grunts. </p>
<p>Will knows that Ray would normally be happy about even a small display of gratitude but right now he just looks slightly uncomfortable. “Yeah, no problem. That’s my job.”</p>
<p>Susan looks over at Will, tilting her head slightly towards Ray. He knows what she’s trying to tell him and he might not like it but she’s right. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Will tells Ray, calm but sincere. </p>
<p>Ray shakes his head. “You care about her. I get it.” He wrinkles his brow. “Sort of.” </p>
<p>He’s quiet for a moment before he brightens, holding out the cup carrier he’s carrying. “We brought real coffee!” </p>
<p>“Oh thank god,” Jai says as he reaches for one. “This is not terrible,” he announces.</p>
<p>Standish nods thoughtfully. “Not terrible: that’s high praise from Jai.” He turns to Ray. “Told you Peet’s was underrated.”</p>
<p>It’s an eerie approximation of normalcy, Will finds himself thinking as he listens to the rest of the team argue about coffee. They have this debate on a weekly basis, when the loser of each Friday’s pool competition brings coffee for the team the next Monday. That’s usually Ray, which means the coffee is usually Starbucks, which means there’s plenty to argue about. Except this week they’re in a hospital waiting room instead of the Dead Drop, and Frankie’s not there to say, “What does it matter, it’s caffeine,” as she adds enough sugar to drown out the taste of the coffee entirely. </p>
<p>He can hear her absence in the awkward pauses in the conversation, the laughter that comes out hollow and thin and dies quickly in the near-empty room. He tells himself that it’s temporary, this new and uncomfortable cadence. That they won’t need to settle into a rhythm with five voices instead of six.</p>
<p>Will grabs his second coffee of the day and Susan raises her eyebrows at him. “What,” he snaps, but she just shakes her head. She looks tired, he notices, and immediately feels terrible for not noticing earlier. Of course she’s tired; they all are. “Sorry,” he says.</p>
<p>Having exhausted all possible coffee-related avenues of discussion, the room goes quiet again.</p>
<p>“When is she gonna wake up?” Standish finally asks.</p>
<p>The question is directed at Will but he isn’t sure how to answer it. He looks at Jai, who turns to look at Susan. “They’re not sure,” she says softly. </p>
<p>“But she will. Right?”</p>
<p>“They’re optimistic,” Susan says after another pause. “She was hurt really badly and there were some nasty drugs in her system, but the doctors say she’s getting better. Her body just needs some time to heal.” Her voice isn’t quite steady and she sounds like she’s willing herself to believe what she’s just said.</p>
<p>Standish nods. “Okay,” he says. He doesn’t ask any more questions but he just sits there, drinking coffee and looking lost. He might still be a little bit terrified of Frankie, but she’s a colleague and a mentor and maybe even something approaching a friend.</p>
<p>Will wishes he could tell Standish that she’ll be alright. He believes it with as much certainty as he believes anything right now but he can’t find the right words to explain that.</p>
<p>He’d decided long ago that optimism was the only way to keep himself sane in this line of work. It’s a mindset that he’s cultivated carefully over the years, an outlook that allows him to retain his humanity in a job that comes with significant physical and psychological dangers. It doesn’t keep him from seeing the reality of a situation, despite what Frankie seems to think. He doesn’t crop out the parts of the picture that are ugly or incongruous with the image in his head, but he knows how to reframe the objects, to alter the lighting until the composition as a whole is something that he can accept. He can tell himself that she’s strong in every sense of the word, that she’s unrelenting to the point of stubbornness, that she’s capable of surviving even something like this. And he can believe it completely, needs to believe it or he’ll start to break down entirely. But he also knows well that she’s human and she’s not indestructible, knows just how fragile a human life really is.</p>
<p>Under normal circumstances, he would leap at the opportunity to launch into extended metaphor, but he doesn’t have the energy at the moment. He’s not sure he could get it quite right anyway, could adequately describe the delicate balance between hope and delusion that keeps him sane in times like these.</p>
<p>His mind is still sluggish and tired and the caffeine may have taken the edge off but it’s starting to send his heart rate and his anxiety levels through the roof.</p>
<p>He’s surrounded by these people who he trusts, who he knows better than almost anyone else in the world, and all he can think is that he’s rarely felt so alone. The room is suddenly too small, the silence closing in on him like plastic wrap, clinging to his skin and making it hard for him to breathe. He gets up and walks out into the hallway without a word.</p>
<p>No one except Jai has even hinted that he might bear responsibility for the situation. He’s not even sure if Jai really blames him or if he’s just been the most convenient target for his anger and fear. That makes it even worse, somehow, because Will knows it’s his fault.</p>
<p>Will, please don’t go.</p>
<p>Maybe she’d be in better shape right now if he hadn’t waited so long to leave her. He hasn’t told anyone about that, isn’t quite sure how. He can see how hard Susan is trying to hold herself together for everyone else’s sake and he doesn’t want to add to her emotional burden.</p>
<p>A part of him wonders if it’s selfish, holding on to this piece of information, deciding what the rest of the team does and doesn’t get to know about what happened. He tells himself he’s doing it to spare them and he almost believes it.</p>
<p>He hadn’t intended to end up at Frankie’s room, but that’s where he finds himself when he stops walking. The visiting hours in the ICU are limited and he’s not allowed in, but he doesn’t know where else to go. He sits down next to the door, his back against the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest. He stares up at the ceiling and focuses on each breath and tries not to think about anything at all.</p>
<p>The sound of footsteps echoes down the hall after a couple of minutes. It’s a sharp noise, one made by heels rather than the boots and sneakers of medical staff, and it continues to get louder until it stops next to him.</p>
<p>“Hi Susan,” he says without moving his head to look at her.</p>
<p>“Will,” she asks, “are you okay?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine.”</p>
<p>“If you want to talk about anything--”</p>
<p>“I really don’t,” he says, his voice a forced calm.</p>
<p>She doesn’t force the matter. “I just got my laptop from Ray’s car and Tomorrow Never Dies is on Netflix. Come on.”</p>
<p>Will sighs but reaches out to let Susan help him up. They walk back in silence.</p>
<p>“We’re going to watch James Bond,” Susan announces as she enters the waiting room with Will.</p>
<p>Standish looks up, surprised. “Really?” he asks. “You guys actually like James Bond?”</p>
<p>Susan scoffs. “Of course not!” </p>
<p>“We make fun of him,” Will explains. </p>
<p>It’s a tradition that started when they were both at the academy, a way to relax after a tough exam or a particularly disastrous training exercise. They weren’t real spies, not yet, but at least they knew enough not to give themselves away on a mission with their drink preferences. They’d go to Susan’s place because she had a cat and a better couch and they’d take shots of cheap whiskey every time Bond introduced himself with his last name first.</p>
<p>“Alright, I’m in,” Standish says.</p>
<p>Jai doesn’t speak but he does move his chair over a few feet to get a better view of the computer.</p>
<p>The only other person in the room is an older woman sitting in the far corner. </p>
<p>“Would you like to watch with us?” Will asks her, because he’s nothing if not polite.</p>
<p>The woman thanks him and pulls up a chair and they start the movie.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Credit once again goes to thesearchforbluejello for the concept of Will making fun of James Bond movies, which I summarily grabbed with my little raccoon hands and ran off with (with her permission, of course).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Wait, is that Michelle Yeoh?” Standish asks about halfway through. “She looks so young there.”</p><p>“She did have a career before Star Trek, you know,” Will says with an exaggerated sigh. “I hate that I know that’s where you know her from.”</p><p>“Oh come on, admit it, you liked Discovery.” Standish protests.</p><p>Will shrugs noncommittally. “Maybe.” Standish, Jai, and Frankie had claimed a relative majority a while back and turned their monthly movie night into a Star Trek marathon. He’d been holding off on admitting that some of it had actually been pretty good until he could get Frankie to acknowledge that she had enjoyed Sleepless in Seattle, but there’s no longer a reason to keep up the act. </p><p>The movie is supposed to provide a distraction from the current situation and yet somehow everything just keeps leading back to her. He can’t stop himself from thinking about how she would comment on the clothing and footwear choices of the female spies, about how she would object to the unrealistic fight scenes. He can hear her absence in their running commentary and it’s almost deafening.</p><p>“It’s like they’re not even trying,” Jai complains after a small blast onscreen, drawing Will’s attention back to the movie. “I could build a more effective bomb in my sleep.” The remark earns Jai a concerned glance from the old woman but it doesn’t seem to bother him.</p><p>“These guys are worse than Stormtroopers,” Standish comments moments later. “Even I have better aim than that.”</p><p>“Mm, that’s debatable,” Will says without taking his eyes off the screen. “There’s no way all of those shots could have missed Bond, though.”</p><p>There’s something cathartic about tearing apart this fictional universe, the one where the good guys have perfect aim and the bad guys only hit their targets when it’s convenient for the plot.<br/>The one where the spy always manages to save the day and his partner never ends up on life support.</p><p>Will notices that the woman’s chair is slightly further than it started out from the rest of the group, but he can’t quite bring himself to care.</p><p>He falls asleep halfway through Goldfinger and wakes to find Susan watching him with gentle concern.</p><p>“Will,” Susan says, not unkindly, “you smell like smoke and you look like you’re about to pass out. Go find a hotel, take a shower and get some real sleep. You’ll feel better.”</p><p>Will sighs. He’s sore and exhausted and he knows he needs to sleep for more than an hour at a time in something that isn’t a plastic chair, but he can’t help feeling like he owes it to Frankie to stay this time. </p><p>“I can’t—” He can’t leave her again but he doesn’t have the energy to explain that right now because he knows Susan will read more into it than he’d like. From the looks she’s giving him, though, she’s starting to read into the absence of an explanation instead.</p><p>“We’ll still be here,” she says and he wonders if she has any idea what he’s thinking. “She won’t be alone. We’ll call you if anything happens before you get back.”</p><p>Will just frowns and she narrows her eyes at him. “This isn’t like you,” she says. “Come on, we’re going for a walk.”</p><p>“Fine,” he says, pushing himself out of his chair with a grunt. “If that’s what you want.”</p><p>He heads towards the exit and can hear her following behind him.</p><p>“Okay, what’s going on?” she asks once they’re out of earshot of the rest of the team.</p><p>Will turns to look at her, raising his eyebrows. “You really have to ask?”</p><p>“You’re brooding--”</p><p>“I’m not--” he starts to protest but she keeps going.</p><p>“Which usually means there’s something bothering you and you haven’t talked to anyone about it. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but I think it might help.”</p><p>Sometimes he hates that his best friend is a psychologist. He still doesn’t want to talk about it but he knows she’s trying to help him and he knows that he probably needs it. </p><p>“She asked me not to leave,” he says after a moment’s hesitation. “After the explosion, I mean. She was scared. I’ve never seen her like that, Susan. I think— I think she thought she was going to die and she didn’t want to be alone.”</p><p>He watches as Susan’s eyes widen despite her best attempt to keep her expression neutral for his sake. “Oh, Will,” she says but he’s not done talking.</p><p>“I left her. I told her I loved her and then I— I waited until she passed out and I left her there.” He watches Susan carefully, silently daring her to react, but she doesn’t this time. “What kind of person does that make me?”</p><p>“It makes you a good person in a really terrible situation,” she says gently.</p><p>Will just shakes his head. “I know I should have left sooner but I just couldn’t make myself do it. She might be doing much better right now if I hadn’t waited to leave.”</p><p>“Will, that’s an impossible decision. You know that. But you did your best.” </p><p>“What if my best wasn’t good enough? I’m not a twelve-year-old playing soccer. I don’t get a participation trophy when I fuck up, Susan, I get people killed.” </p><p>“No,” Susan agrees, “You’re not a twelve-year-old. You’re an experienced federal agent and I trust that you made the right decision. But even if you didn’t,” she continues as he opens his mouth to object, “You can’t do anything about that now. I know you feel bad about leaving her but you’re not helping her by doing this to yourself. Staying here and beating yourself up isn’t going to make her heal any faster.”</p><p>Will knows she’s right but he can’t quite convince his brain to accept it. He sighs. “It just feels like I’m letting her down again.”</p><p>“You’re not letting her down, Will. You’re human. You need sleep. She won’t be very happy if her partner is a zombie when she wakes up.”</p><p>“That’s true,” he admits.</p><p>“So go get some sleep. I”ll call you if anything happens. I promise.”</p><p>Will sighs. “Okay, fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”</p><p>---</p><p>Will comes back early the next morning, having showered and shaved and put on actual clothes. Frankie doesn’t wake up that day, or the day after that. The doctors say that’s not unusual after this kind of trauma but it doesn’t make the waiting any easier. Jai finally agrees to spend the night at the hotel after he accidentally sets his soldering iron down too close to a curtain and the fabric starts smoking. They end up staying in the hospital in shifts after it becomes apparent that no one can sleep in the stiff plastic chairs indefinitely. </p><p>Frankie’s still in the ICU, which means that the number of visitors is restricted when they’re permitted at all. The hospital waiting room quickly becomes their new headquarters and everything about it is aggressively temporary. Standish sets up a computer with wires running the length of the room at knee-height. Jai continues to use his portable toolset, packing everything back into its suitcase at the end of each day. They buy overpriced coffee from the cafe across the street and eat greasy takeout with plastic utensils at night. It’s entirely unsustainable and Susan thinks that maybe that’s the point. They’re all clinging to this idea that Frankie will wake up soon and then life will go back to normal.</p><p>By day three, they’ve run out of Bond movies to watch, and Susan figures it’s just as well; their debates about proper spycraft technique were becoming increasingly heated. They’re all worried and restless and, like any family, they can only spend so much time together before arguments start to break out. Arguments about everything except the fact that she should be doing better by now.</p><p>Will walks in with a tray of coffee the next day and sets it down on the table, leaving to see Frankie without a word to the rest of the team. He looks strained and tired and Susan makes a mental note to ask him later if he’s been able to sleep.</p><p>Standish raises his eyebrows slightly, waiting until Will is out of sight to comment.</p><p>“So,” he says, “is somebody gonna tell me what’s going on with Will? Because he doesn’t seem… like Will.”</p><p>“What’s going on with Will,” Susan says slowly, “is none of your business unless he wants to tell you himself.”</p><p>“Okay, first of all, everyone’s business is somehow always your business, so that feels a little hypocritical. Second of all, why do I get the feeling that everyone else here knows something I don’t?”</p><p>“I don’t know anything,” Ray chimes in before Susan can respond.</p><p>“That is consistently true,” Jai says with a slight smile and Ray frowns at him.</p><p>There’s an awkward silence followed by a beeping noise as Jai pushes a button on his phone.</p><p>Standish yelps, almost dropping his cup as a small metallic probe extends from his coffee. He gingerly plucks the device out of the liquid, setting it in his hand and eyeing it suspiciously. It looks very much like what Jai has been working on for the past few days.</p><p>Jai laughs quietly and Standish turns to glare at him. “What the hell, man? And you say I’m childish.” </p><p>“Oh, it’s very cute,” Susan says.</p><p>“Bet it’d be less cute if it was in your coffee,” Standish grumbles.</p><p>Susan just shrugs. “You didn’t grow up with enough siblings. Jai knows not to mess with me.”</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When she finally wakes up, it’s with the feeling that she’s choking. She starts to gag before she’s fully regained consciousness and she can hear something beeping as her heart rate increases. She tries to move her hand to her mouth but only manages to move it a few inches before someone grabs hold of it. </p><p>“Frankie, it’s okay, just leave it,” she hears a voice say. It takes her a moment to recognize the voice as belonging to Jai. She finally manages to open her eyes and has to blink a few times before Jai’s face comes into focus above her, looking concerned. </p><p>She trusts Jai instinctively but her brain is fuzzy and she still can’t breathe properly and she can’t quite override her body’s impulse to panic.</p><p>She blinks again and suddenly there’s a nurse she hadn’t seen before, but she doesn’t have time to fully process this before everything goes dark again.</p><p>The next time she wakes up, she’s breathing on her own. Her mind is clear enough to form coherent thoughts and she recognizes that something feels off. Susan’s asleep in the plastic chair against the wall, her head tilted to one side. Her face is drawn and there are dark circles under her eyes that she hasn’t even tried to cover up. She blinks awake as Frankie studies her.</p><p>“Hey,” Susan says, the word laced with uncertainty and surprise. “How are you feeling?” </p><p>Her whole body aches. She feels slow and heavy and she’s beginning to realize that the burning in her stomach isn’t going to go away.</p><p>“What happened?” she asks, or at least she tries to ask. Her throat feels like it’s been introduced to hot coals and her mouth doesn’t quite want to follow her directions.</p><p>Susan seems to understand what she’s asking though, because she raises her eyebrows just slightly. “You were on a mission,” she says slowly as she hands Frankie a cup of water. Frankie can’t convince her fingers to wrap around it completely and Susan helps her guide it to her mouth. “Do you remember the explosion?” Susan asks after Frankie has taken a sip and pushed the cup away. </p><p>She remembers blind terror and desperation but the feelings are muted and indistinct, like the remnants of a nightmare. She remembers hazy darkness, excruciating pain, and screams that may well have been her own. </p><p>She remembers yelling at Will, or maybe for him, but she’s not sure why. She has no memory of the blast itself, of—</p><p>“Will?”</p><p>The word turns into a gasp as she tries to sit up. Pain rips through her body and the room tilts and darkens at an alarming speed. It takes a moment before she registers Susan’s hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down onto the bed.</p><p>“Will’s okay,” Susan says. “Everything’s okay. You just need to stay still right now.”</p><p>There’s something that isn’t right about her tone of voice, the way her eyes don’t quite meet Frankie’s. </p><p>“He’s not here,” Frankie says once she’s managed to get her breathing under control. </p><p>“No, he’s not,” Susan agrees. “He went to go get some rest. So did Jai.”</p><p>“Oh,” she says. Jai had been a practically immovable fixture in the hospital room when she’d been shot in France, only leaving after she’d tired herself out trying to convince him to get a proper night’s sleep. She can’t imagine Will would be any more reasonable in a situation like this. She considers again how tired Susan looks, how delicately she’s trying to handle the situation, and her stomach drops as she starts to put the pieces together. “Susan, how long was I out?” she asks. Part of her isn’t sure she wants the answer.</p><p>“Four days. You had us all worried for a while.”</p><p>Frankie frowns and looks away. She knows Susan isn’t trying to make her feel guilty, that she’s telling her this to prepare her for interactions with the rest of the team. Frankie’s just starting to get used to working with other people, to relying on them during missions, and the idea that these people actually care about her still makes her uncomfortable. “You’d think I would feel a little less tired,” she complains. </p><p>“You’ve been through a lot,” Susan says simply.</p><p>Frankie just hums in acknowledgement. She’s not in as much pain now as she was a few moments ago but she’s starting to feel like she’s floating and just keeping her eyes open is beginning to feel like a struggle.</p><p>“It’s okay, you can go back to sleep.”</p><p>She can hear Susan’s voice but it sounds far away, suddenly. “Yeah, ‘kay.”</p><p>Susan starts to say something else but she’s asleep again before Susan finishes the sentence.</p><p>---</p><p>Will’s staring at a blank Word document, a lukewarm cup of coffee sitting untouched next to his laptop on the desk, when his phone rings. It’s Susan.</p><p>“Will?” She makes a sound that could either be a laugh or a sob and he can feel his heart rate skyrocket. “This is happy crying,” she clarifies quickly. “Sorry. Frankie woke up again. She was kind of confused and she doesn’t remember much from the mission but she was awake and asking coherent questions.” There’s another sound that he’s pretty sure is laughter, the frantic kind that stems from relief rather than humor. “She’s gonna be okay, Will.”</p><p>It takes him a moment to process the information. Frankie woke up. There are no more lingering doubts about her state of consciousness. She’s going to be okay.</p><p>His hands are shaking by the time he sets down the phone. He’s elated and incredibly relieved but he’s also suddenly terrified. What’s he supposed to say to her? How is he supposed to explain what happened? That she made some really bad decisions and he didn’t think to question them and then he left her there when she asked him to stay?</p><p>Unease starts to bubble up in his stomach as he thinks about what he’s going to have to tell her.  But there’s something else there. Something that starts to smolder deep in his gut when he thinks about her. It takes him longer than it should to identify the emotion as anger.</p><p>---</p><p>She wakes up more often after that first day, staying conscious for longer each time before the drugs pull her under again. She’s never alone; there’s always at least one team member sitting with her when the doctors and nurses are gone.</p><p>Jai sits quietly next to her for the most part, a familiar and comfortable presence, and leaves her to sort out her thoughts. He never was one for unnecessary conversation; it’s one of the reasons they get along so well. </p><p>Standish draws a flowering vine wrapping around the cast on her arm as he fills her in on the gossip she’s missed and it ends up looking pretty impressive. Ray contributes a crudely drawn spaceship tangled in the vines and she blames the pain meds when it makes her laugh.</p><p>Will doesn’t come. It bothers her more than she’d like to admit, because he might be petty at times but he’s never downright cruel and she’s starting to wonder whether there’s information she’s missing. She still can’t remember much of what happened the day the bomb went off and Susan’s assurance that Will was alright had felt a little less than genuine.</p><p>“Is Will really okay?” she asks the next time she ends up alone with Susan. “He hasn’t come by.” It comes out as more of an accusation than she’d intended. </p><p>“Yeah, he’s okay.” Susan frowns. “Physically at least. He’s just— he’s not handling this really well right now.” </p><p>Frankie frowns. “Did something happen?” </p><p>“Did I do something?” she asks when Susan winces instead of responding.</p><p>“Frankie, sweetie,” Susan says gently, “you asked him not to leave.”</p><p>Her eyes widen in horror. “Oh god, really?” </p><p>That feels like the kind of thing she should remember but her mind stubbornly refuses to dredge up the relevant memories. She has a vague recollection now of being trapped under rubble, of calling out for Will and receiving no response but her own voice echoing off the walls that were still standing. He must have left at some point to get her help, and because he’s Will, he probably feels guilty about it.</p><p>“He said you were pretty out of it at the time,” Susan offers as though it’s a reasonable explanation.</p><p>“Fuck,” Frankie groans, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back onto her pillow. “So now he’s avoiding me?”</p><p>“He’s had a rough week,” Susan says, and Frankie knows that’s probably the understatement of the century.</p><p>---</p><p>There’s a knock on Will’s door and he jumps at the sound. </p><p>“It’s Susan,” says the voice on the other side. “Come on, open the door.”</p><p>“Just a minute,” Will calls out, scooping up the protein bar wrappers and empty water bottles he’d left on the table and dumping them into the trash can. He’s suddenly very aware that he’s wearing an old t-shirt and sweatpants and he hasn’t shaved in days. It’s not that he thinks she’ll judge him, exactly-- they’ve both seen each other in worse shape than this-- but he’s not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed and he doesn’t want her to worry.</p><p>He opens the door a moment later and she frowns when she sees him.</p><p>“Will, what’s going on?” she asks as she takes a seat in the plush desk chair against the wall. “It’s been two days. She’s asked about you. She won’t admit it but she’s hurt that you haven’t come.” Susan pauses. “Are you trying to punish her?”</p><p>“Of course not!” he says, stalking back over to the desk chair. “I just have to finish writing this report.”</p><p>“Will,” she says, not unkindly, “What’s really going on?”</p><p>“What am I supposed to write here?” he demands of her. “I let my partner continue a mission after she’d been drugged? Splitting up to cover more territory seemed like a good idea at the time?”</p><p>“You know you don’t have to finish that report anytime soon,” she reminds him. “Casey gave you a month off.”</p><p>It’s not about the report and he knows she knows that. “Will,” she says again. “Look at me.” She waits until he turns to face her. “What happened to Frankie wasn’t your fault.”</p><p>“Yeah, it was,” he says stiffly. “Jai was right. I knew she wasn’t fine. I shouldn’t have let her keep going.”</p><p>“Do you think you could have stopped her?” Susan asks. He can tell it’s an honest question. </p><p>Will frowns. He hadn’t really thought about that. “I could have tried, at least.”</p><p>“Would you feel less guilty if you had done that?”</p><p>Probably not. Not if she’d still ended up in the hospital because he couldn’t keep her safe. Because she hadn’t cared enough to keep herself safe.</p><p>“I don’t know. I just wish--” He sighs. “She does things without thinking, sometimes, and she always just expects me to go along with it. And it’s not usually a big deal.” He laughs but there’s an edge to it. “I mean, it’s frustrating, but it turns out okay most of the time. Until she ends up bleeding out under a pile of rubble and there’s nothing I can do to help her.”</p><p>“Hey, you did help her. You saved her life,” Susan says. She narrows her eyes thoughtfully. “You know that. So who are you really mad at here?”</p><p>He considers the question for a moment before responding. “Frankie, I guess.”</p><p>“Okay,” she says in her psychologist tone, the one that gives him no indication of what she’s really thinking.</p><p>She doesn’t say anything else, so he keeps going. “But that’s unfair of me, isn’t it? She almost gets herself killed and I’m mad at her because she didn’t stop to consider my feelings.”</p><p>Susan doesn’t answer the question directly. “You think she takes unnecessary risks?”</p><p>“I think her definition of ‘unnecessary’ is very different from mine. She still operates like she’s working alone, sometimes. Like she doesn’t have anything to lose.”</p><p>“And?” Susan asks. Will can tell she’s trying very hard not to ask how that makes him feel.</p><p>“And it terrifies me. Because I care about her.” He pauses. “You know, I trust her with my life but sometimes I don’t think I trust her with hers.”</p><p>“This sounds,” Susan says carefully, “like a conversation you should maybe be having with Frankie.”</p><p>Will sighs. “You’re right,” he says. “I should go talk to her.”</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Will walks into Frankie’s room three hours later. She’s awake, sitting up and watching something he can’t see on the television, and he takes a moment to study her before she turns to him with raised eyebrows. She looks better than she had even a few days ago, more like a human and less like a poorly-rendered wax figure. Her skin is starting to gain back some of its color and the bruise on her cheek has faded to a greenish yellow. But more than that, her eyes are open and her face is no longer devoid of expression, even if her features are currently displaying a mix of surprise and resentment.</p><p>“What do you want?” she asks Will, her voice clear but bitter.</p><p>Jai’s sitting next to her, working on his computer, and he raises his head when she starts to speak. He looks from Will to Frankie and back at Will, his eyes narrowing. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he says mildly as he stands up from his chair. </p><p>Will waits until Jai has left the room. “We should talk,” he says, sitting down in the chair next to Frankie.</p><p>“No, we should have talked two days ago. I don’t think there’s anything to talk about now.” She sounds dangerously calm.</p><p>“Frankie, I’m sorry--” he starts to say. She raises her eyebrows silently and he continues. “I was trying to… I needed to work some stuff out.”</p><p>“Are you mad at me because I asked you not to leave?” she asks him. She’s making an effort to keep her voice firm and steady but he can hear the apprehension that lies beneath. “I know it was unprofessional and I shouldn’t have—”</p><p>“What? No, of course not,” he says, surprised. “You remember that?” </p><p>“No,” she admits. “Susan said that’s what you told her. Why?”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” he says in a tone that suggests it most definitely matters. “But no, I’m not mad about that. I’m mad because you said you were fine. You lied to me and it almost got you killed.”</p><p>She wrinkles her brow as she tries to work out what he’s telling her and he watches as her expression morphs into something close to anger. “I was doing my job, Will. The success of the mission is more important than whether I feel perfectly fine. It’s not my fault if you can’t handle that.”</p><p>Will shakes his head, telling himself to ignore the bait. He’s not sure whether it’s an automatic deflection or a deliberate attempt to rile him up, but he’s also not sure it matters. “You miscalculated. You act like you’re invulnerable and you’re too goddamn proud to ask for help when you need it. If I had known what those drugs were doing to you, I never would have agreed to split up.”</p><p>She just glares at him for a moment before speaking. “If we hadn’t split up, we could have both been killed by that explosion,” she finally says.</p><p>“Or we could have both walked out.” He sighs. “But that’s not the point. The point is that we’re supposed to be partners and we’re supposed to be able to trust each other. Except you clearly don’t trust me and apparently I shouldn’t trust you, so I’m not sure where that leaves us.”</p><p>Frankie frowns. “I really didn’t think—”</p><p>“I know you didn’t think! Have you-- have you ever, at any point in time, given any thought to how your actions affect anyone else?” He’s raised his voice more than he intended and he realizes belatedly that he’s breathing hard but hopes that maybe he’s gotten his point across.</p><p>She stiffens. “How is that even relevant?” she spits out. “You’re fine.”</p><p>“Frankie, I almost watched you die and I couldn’t do anything about it.” He practically yells it at her and she looks away. “Do you have any idea what that’s like?”</p><p>When she looks back up at him a second later, her jaw is clenched and her eyes are hard. “Honestly? Not really. I’m usually the one pulling the trigger. And if all you’ve come here to do is lecture me on my capacity for emotional attachment, then you can leave, because I really don’t want to hear it.” </p><p>“Look, Frankie, I care about you, and--” </p><p>She laughs at that, a short and bitter sound. “Really? Because coming into my hospital room to yell at me after you ignored me for two days is a funny way of showing that.” He wishes he couldn’t see the hurt so clearly on her face because it’s making it hard for him to stay mad at her. “I had to ask Susan if you were okay,” she says. “Not that I actually cared.”</p><p>He’s not sure what to make of that, but he realizes as he looks more closely at her that the argument is exhausting her: she’s slumped back against her pillow and she can barely keep her eyes open. “You know what,” he says after a brief pause, “this was a bad idea.”</p><p>He’s pretty sure she won’t try to stop him from leaving but he storms out before she gets the chance.</p><p>---</p><p>Frankie lets out a frustrated sigh when she can no longer hear his footsteps echoing down the hall. She hates that he can just walk away, that her own body won’t permit her to stalk off in the opposite direction.</p><p>It’s almost fitting that their first interaction after she almost dies is a major argument, she thinks. She doesn’t doubt that he genuinely cares about her, but he has a tendency to forget that his point of view isn’t the only one that matters. She knows that she has a tendency to close off and lash out when things start to get too personal, that she ends up frustrating him at best and provoking him at worst. She’s not usually prone to self-reflection and she thinks that confinement to a hospital bed must be starting to get to her.</p><p>It occurs to her, suddenly, that he might not have any idea that she loves him. That he’s angry because he cares, because he tries to protect her, and because he can’t see that she’s trying to do the same. She’d been determined not to let him see it, because she knows he’d never let it go. It bothers her more than she’s comfortable admitting, even to herself, that she could have died without him knowing.</p><p>---</p><p>She closes her eyes as he walks back through the door the next morning. “Go away,” she mumbles, “I’m sleeping.”</p><p>“I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you earlier, and I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday.” Because it’s Will, it’s a genuine apology. She cracks her eyes open to look at him and he appears to take it as a sign to continue. “I was scared and I was angry and I didn’t trust myself not to say anything I didn’t mean.” He barks out a laugh. “Turns out, waiting didn’t do much good in that respect. I’m still mad that you didn’t tell me what was going on, but that’s not something we have to talk about right now. I’m just-- I’m really glad you’re alive, okay?”</p><p>She smiles slightly, without quite looking at him. “So am I.” She’s quiet for a moment, before her eyes meet his and her expression turns serious. “Do you know why I let them inject me with that serum?” She continues before he has a chance to answer the question. “Because they said they’d kill you if I tried anything and that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.” She lets out a sound that he thinks might have been a laugh and then winces. “I shouldn’t have cared. A year ago, I wouldn’t have cared. But last week I did, because I’m an idiot now, apparently.” She stops suddenly, her eyes widening with something approaching horror. “I have no filter on these pain meds. You’re obligated to forget anything embarrassing that I tell you.”</p><p>Will’s brow furrows as he thinks about what she’d said. “Caring about me embarrasses you?”</p><p>“I didn’t say that.” She pauses. “Okay, I may have implied it.” </p><p>“Just a little bit,” Will says, but he’s smiling.</p><p>“I know you don’t think it’s a bad thing, but I can’t let it affect how I do my job. And I know it will,” she insists when he starts to protest, “because it already has. I let them give me those drugs because I was afraid of what they’d do to you if I tried to resist. Should I have tried something anyway? Did I take too many risks? Did I take enough?” She laughs again, quietly, at what he assumes is the irony of the situation. “With this job, I can’t afford to overthink. I’m a really good agent because I can improvise and because I don’t hesitate, but, well, there’s a reason I haven’t had many partners.” She looks over at him, her eyes wide and her expression serious. “That’s not something I can change just because it’s not who you want me to be.”</p><p>It’s not an apology-- she never apologizes directly and she probably never will-- but at least they’re having an honest conversation and he thinks that maybe that’s good enough for now. None of this comes easily to her but she’s making an effort to communicate and he decides that he could try a little harder to see things from her point of view.</p><p>“Then don’t.” Will says. “Just do what you think is right.”</p><p>She goes quiet and Will’s starting to think he may have overstepped again when she narrows her eyes decisively. </p><p>“There is one thing I think I have to do.”</p><p>She pushes herself onto her side, her face scrunching from the effort it takes. </p><p>“Frankie, what--?”</p><p>She reaches out, putting a hand on his shoulder and pulling him forward until his face is just inches from hers. </p><p>“Kiss me,” she breathes.</p><p>“Are you sure--” He breaks off, letting the question linger. She’s been through a lot in the past week and she’s on a heavy dose of pain meds and her request is a far cry from the tone of yesterday’s conversation. He wants this but he knows there will be consequences and he needs to be certain that she recognizes that too.</p><p>She raises her eyebrows. “Pretty sure, yeah.”</p><p>So he does. Delicately, at first, because she’s still injured and he’s scared of hurting her. She shows no such restraint, moving her hand from his shoulder to his cheek as she presses her lips more firmly against his. The pulse oximeter is cold against his skin and the side of the bed is digging into his stomach and he couldn’t be happier.</p><p>She pushes him away gently after another few seconds, out of breath but smiling. “I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time,” she admits.</p><p>Will laughs, his eyes warm as he looks at her. “So have I.”</p><p>She can feel how badly he wants to talk about what just happened: what it means, where they go from here. He doesn’t say anything, though, and she’s grateful. There will be time to talk later, when they’ve both had a little bit longer to process everything, when she isn’t quite so tired. And she will talk to him. She figures she owes him that much, at least.</p><p>For now, though, she’s content to watch in silence as he doesn’t even try to keep the goofy grin off his face. To feel his hand in hers and to listen to his quiet breathing as she starts to fall asleep.</p>
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